I'm sure the top leadership was well aware of what happened after the first crash yes. They should have immediately gone public and would have prevented the second crash.

Don't forget that hiding MCAS from pilots and the FAA was a conscious decision. It wasn't something that 'just happened'. The decision to not make it depend on redundant AoA sensors by default too.

My point is, I can imagine that the MCAS suicidal side-effect was something unexpected (it was a technical failure edge-case in a specific and rare scenario) and I get that not anticipating it could have been a mistake, not a conscious decision. But after the first crash they should have owned up to it and not waited for a second crash.